The Hero of Ages m-3

by Brandon Sanderson

  "I'm sure that's the only reason," Vin said, smiling slightly as she tossed her bag of coins-minus a few cloth-covered ones to use for jumping-to the old man. "Gold imperials. Still good here, I assume?"

  "Good enough," the old man said, tucking them away. "Good enough. ."

  Vin jumped out into the night, leaping a few houses away, burning bronze to see if she felt any Allomantic pulses from behind. She knew that her nature made her irrationally suspicious of people who appeared weak. For the longest time, she'd been convinced that Cett was Mistborn, simply because he was paraplegic. Still, she checked on Slowswift. This was one old habit that she didn't feel much need to extinguish.

  No pulses came from behind. Soon, she moved on, pulling out Cett's instructions, searching out a second informant. She trusted Slowswift's words well enough, but she would like confirmation. She picked an informant on the other side of the spectrum-a beggar named Hoid whom Cett claimed could be found in a particular square late at night.

  A few quick jumps brought her to the location. She landed atop a roof and looked down, scanning the area. The ash had been allowed to drift here, piling in corners, making a general mess of things. A group of lumps huddled in an alley beside the square. Beggars, without home or job. Vin had lived like that at times, sleeping in alleys, coughing up ash, hoping it wouldn't rain. She soon located a figure that wasn't sleeping like the others, but sitting quietly in the light ashfall. Her ears picked out a faint sound. The man was humming to himself, as the instructions said that he might be doing.

  Vin hesitated.

  She couldn't decide what it was, but something bothered her about the situation. It wasn't right. She didn't stop to think, she simply turned and jumped away. That was one of the big differences between her and Elend-she didn't always need a reason. A feeling was enough. He always wanted to tease things out and find a why, and she loved him for his logic. However, he would have been very frustrated about her decision to turn away from the square as she had.

  Perhaps nothing bad would have happened if she'd gone into the square. Perhaps something terrible would have occurred. She would never know, nor did she need to know. As she had countless other times in her life, Vin simply accepted her instincts and moved on.

  Her flight took her along a street that Cett had noted in his instructions. Curious, Vin didn't search out another informant, but instead followed the road, bounding from anchor to anchor in the pervasive mists. She landed on a cobbled street a short distance from a building with lit windows.

  Blocky and utilitarian, the building was nonetheless daunting-if only because of its size. Cett had written that the Canton of Resource was the largest of the Steel Ministry buildings in the city. Fadrex had acted as a kind of way station between Luthadel and more important cities to the west. Near several main canal routes and well fortified against banditry, the city was the perfect place for a Canton of Resource regional headquarters. Yet, Fadrex hadn't been important enough to attract the Cantons of Orthodoxy or Inquisition-traditionally the most powerful of the Ministry departments.

  That meant that Yomen, as head obligator at the Resource building, had been the area's top religious authority. From what Slowswift said, Vin assumed that Yomen was pretty much a standard Resource obligator: dry, boring, but terribly efficient. And so, of course, he'd chosen to make his old Canton building into his palace. It was what Cett had suspected, and Vin could easily see that it was true. The building bustled with activity despite the late hour, and was guarded by platoons of soldiers. Yomen had probably chosen the building in order to remind everyone where his authority originated.

  Unfortunately, it was also where the Lord Ruler's supply cache would be located. Vin sighed, turning from her contemplation of the building. Part of her wanted to sneak in and try to find her way down to the cavern beneath. Instead, she dropped a coin and shot herself into the air. Even Kelsier wouldn't have tried breaking into the place on his first night of scouting. She'd gotten into the one in Urteau, but it had been abandoned. She had to confer with Elend and study the city for a few days before she did something as bold as sneak into a fortified palace.

  Using starlight and tin, Vin read off the name of the third and final informant. It was another nobleman, which wasn't surprising, considering Cett's own station. She began moving in the direction indicated. However, as she moved, she noticed something.

  She was being followed.

  She only caught hints of him behind her, obscured by the patterns of swirling mist. Tentatively, Vin burned bronze, and was rewarded with a very faint thumping from behind. An obscured Allomantic pulse. Usually, when an Allomancer burned copper-as the one behind her was doing-it made him invisible to the Allomantic bronze sense. Yet, for some reason Vin had never been able to explain, she could see through this obfuscation. The Lord Ruler had been able to do likewise, as had his Inquisitors.

  Vin continued to move. The Allomancer following her obviously believed himself-or herself-invisible to Vin's senses. He moved with quick, easy bounds, following at a safe distance. He was good without being excellent, and he was obviously Mistborn, for only a Mistborn could have burned both copper and steel at the same time.

  Vin wasn't surprised. She'd assumed that if there were any Mistborn in the city, her leaping would draw their attention. Just in case, she hadn't bothered burning any copper herself, leaving her pulses open to be heard by anyone-Mistborn or Seeker-who was listening. Better an enemy drawn out than one hiding in the shadows.

  She increased her pace, though not suspiciously so, and the person following had to move quickly to keep up. Vin kept going toward the front of the city, as if planning to leave. As she got closer, her Allomantic senses produced twin blue lines pointing at the massive iron brackets holding the city gates to the rock at their sides. The brackets were large, substantial sources of metal, and the lines they gave off were bright and thick.

  Which meant they would make excellent anchors. Flaring her pewter to keep from being crushed, Vin Pushed on the brackets, throwing herself backward.

  Immediately, the Allomantic pulses behind her disappeared.

  Vin shot through ash and mist, even her tight clothing flapping slightly from the wind. She quickly Pulled herself down to a rooftop and crouched, tense. The other Allomancer must have stopped burning his metals. But why would he do that? Did he know that she could pierce copperclouds? If he did, then why had he followed her so recklessly?

  Vin felt a chill. There was something else that gave off Allomantic pulses in the night. The mist spirit. She hadn't seen it in over a year. In fact, during her last encounter with it, it had nearly killed Elend-only to then restore him by making him Mistborn.

  She still didn't know how the spirit fit into all of this. It wasn't Ruin-she had felt Ruin's presence when she'd freed him at the Well of Ascension. They were different.

  I don't even know if this was the spirit tonight, Vin told herself. Yet, the one tailing her had vanished so abruptly. .

  Confused, and chilled, she Pushed herself out of the city and quickly made her way back to Elend's camp.

  One final aspect of the Lord Ruler's cultural manipulation is quite interesting: that of technology.

  I have already mentioned that Rashek chose to use Khlenni architecture, which allowed him to construct large structures and gave him the civil engineering necessary to build a city as large as Luthadel. In other areas, however, he suppressed technological advancements. Gunpowder, for instance, was so frowned upon by Rashek that knowledge of its use disappeared almost as quickly as knowledge of the Terris religion.

  Apparently, Rashek found it alarming that armed with gunpowder weapons, even the most common of men could be nearly as effective as archers with years of training. And so, he favored archers. The more training-dependent military technology was, the less likely it was that the peasant population would be able to rise up and resist him. Indeed, skaa revolts always failed in part for this very reason.

  28

  "Are yo
u sure it was the mist spirit?" Elend asked, frowning, a half-finished letter-scribed into a steel foil sheet-sitting on his desk before him. He'd decided to sleep in his cabin aboard the narrowboat, rather than in a tent. Not only was it more comfortable, he felt more secure with walls around him, as opposed to canvas.

  Vin sighed, sitting down on their bed, pulling her legs up and setting her chin on her knees. "I don't know. I kind of got spooked, so I fled."

  "Good thing," Elend said, shivering as he remembered what the mist spirit had done to him.

  "Sazed was convinced that the mist spirit wasn't evil," Vin said.

  "So was I," Elend said. "If you'll remember, I'm the one who walked right up to it, telling you that I felt it was friendly. That was right about the time it stabbed me."

  Vin shook her head. "It was trying to keep me from releasing Ruin. It thought that if you were dying, I would take the power for myself and heal you, rather than giving it up."

  "You don't know its intentions for certain, Vin. You could be connecting coincidences in your mind."

  "Perhaps. However, it led Sazed to discover that Ruin was altering text."

  That much, at least, was true-if, indeed, Sazed's account of the matter could be trusted. The Terrisman had been a little bit. . inconsistent since Tindwyl had died. No, Elend told himself, feeling an instant stab of guilt. No, Sazed is trustworthy. He might be struggling with his faith, but he is still twice as reliable as the rest of us.

  "Oh, Elend," Vin said softly. "There's so much we don't know. Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read. The mist spirit is related to all this, but I can't even begin to fathom how."

  "It's probably on our side," Elend said, though it was hard not to keep flashing back to memories of how it had felt to be stabbed, to feel his life fading away. To die, knowing what it would do to Vin.

  He forced himself back to the conversation at hand. "You think the mist spirit tried to keep you from releasing Ruin, and Sazed says it gave him important information. That makes it the enemy of our enemy."

  "For the moment," Vin said. "But, the mist spirit is much weaker than Ruin. I've felt them both. Ruin was. . vast. Powerful. It can hear whatever we say-can see all places at once. The mist spirit is far fainter. More like a memory than a real force or power."

  "Do you still think it hates you?"

  Vin shrugged. "I haven't seen it in over a year. Yet, I'm pretty sure that it isn't the sort of thing that changes, and I always felt hatred and animosity from it." She paused, frowning. "That was the beginning. That night when I first saw the mist spirit was when I began to sense that the mists were no longer my home."

  "Are you sure the spirit isn't what kills people and makes them sick?"

  Vin nodded. "Yes, I'm sure." She was adamant about this, though Elend felt she was a bit quick to judge. Something ghost-like, moving about in the mists? It seemed like just the kind of thing that would be related to people dying suddenly in those same mists.

  Of course, the people who died in the mists didn't die of stabbings, but of a shaking disease. Elend sighed, rubbing his eyes. His unfinished letter to Lord Yomen sat on his desk-he'd have to get back to it in the morning.

  "Elend," Vin said. "Tonight, I told someone that I'd stop the ash from falling and turn the sun yellow."

  Elend raised an eyebrow. "That informant you spoke of?"

  Vin nodded. The two sat in silence.

  "I never expected you to admit something like that," he finally said.

  "I'm the Hero of Ages, aren't I? Even Sazed said so, before he started to go strange. It's my destiny."

  "The same 'destiny' that said you would take up the power of the Well of Ascension, then release it for the greater good of mankind?"

  Vin nodded.

  "Vin," Elend said with a smile, "I really don't think 'destiny' is the sort of thing we need to worry about right now. I mean, we have proof that the prophecies were twisted by Ruin in order to trick people into freeing him."

  "Someone has to worry about the ash," Vin said.

  There wasn't much he could say to that. The logical side of him wanted to argue, claiming that they should focus on the things they could do-making a stable government, uncovering the secrets left by the Lord Ruler, securing the supplies in the caches. Yet, the constant ashfall seemed to be growing even denser. If that continued, it wouldn't be long before the sky was nothing more than a solid black storm of ash.

  It just seemed so difficult to think that Vin-his wife-could do anything about the color of the sun or the falling ash. Demoux is right, he thought, tapping his fingers across the metallic letter to Lord Yomen. I'm really not a very good member of the Church of the Survivor.

  He looked across the cabin at her, sitting on the bed, expression distant as she thought about things that shouldn't have to be her burden. Even after leaping about all night, even after their days spent traveling, even with her face dirtied by ash, she was beautiful.

  At that moment, Elend realized something. Vin didn't need another person worshipping her. She didn't need another faithful believer like Demoux, especially not in Elend. He didn't need to be a good member of the Church of the Survivor. He needed to be a good husband.

  "Well, then," he said. "Let's do it."

  "What?" Vin asked.

  "Save the world," Elend said. "Stop the ash."

  Vin snorted quietly. "You make it sound like a joke."

  "No, I'm serious," he said, standing. "If this is what you feel you must do-what you feel that you are-then let's do it. I'll help however I can."

  "What about your speech before?" Vin said. "In the last storage cavern-you talked about division of labor. Me working on the mists, you working on uniting the empire."

  "I was wrong."

  Vin smiled, and suddenly Elend felt as if the world had been put back together just a bit.

  "So," Elend said, sitting on the bed beside her. "What have you got? Any thoughts?"

  Vin paused. "Yes," she said. "But I can't tell you."

  Elend frowned.

  "It's not that I don't trust you," Vin said. "It's Ruin. In the last storage cavern, I found a second inscription on the plate, down near the bottom. It warned me that anything I speak-or that I write-will be known by our enemy. So, if we talk too much, he will know our plans."

  "That makes it a bit difficult to work on the problem together."

  Vin took his hands. "Elend, do you know why I finally agreed to marry you?"

  Elend shook his head.

  "Because I realized that you trusted me," Vin said. "Trusted me as nobody ever has before. On that night, when I fought Zane, I decided that I had to give my trust to you. This force that's destroying the world, we have something that it can never understand. I don't necessarily need your help; I need your trust. Your hope. It's something I've never had of myself, and I rely on yours."

  Elend nodded slowly. "You have it."

  "Thank you."

  "You know," Elend added, "during those days when you refused to marry me, I constantly thought about how strange you were."

  She raised an eyebrow. "Well, that's romantic."

  Elend smiled. "Oh, come on. You have to admit that you're unusual, Vin. You're like some strange mixture of a noblewoman, a street urchin, and a cat. Plus, you've managed-in our short three years together-to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancee. That's kind of like a homicidal hat trick. It's a strange foundation for a relationship, wouldn't you say?"

  Vin just rolled her eyes.

  "I'm just glad I don't have any other close relatives," Elend said. Then, he eyed her. "Except for you, of course."

  "I'm not about to drown myself, if that's what you're getting at."

  "No," Elend said. "I'm sorry. I'm just. . well, you know. Anyway, I was explaining something. In the end, I stopped worrying about how strange you seemed. I realized that it didn't really matter if I understood you, because I trusted you. Does that make sense? Eith
er way, I guess I'm saying that I agree. I don't really know what you're doing, and I don't have any clue how you're going to achieve it. But, well, I trust that you'll do it."

  Vin pulled close to him.

  "I just wish there were something I could do to help," Elend said.

  "Then take the whole numbers part," Vin said, frowning distastefully. Though she'd been the one to think something was odd about the percentages of those who fell to the mists, Elend knew that she found numbers troublesome. She didn't have the training, or the practice, to deal with them.

  "You're sure that's even related?" Elend asked.

  "You were the one who thought that the percentages were so strange."

  "Good point. All right, I'll work on it."

  "Just don't tell me what you discover," Vin said.

  "Well, how is that going to help anything?"

  "Trust," Vin said. "You can tell me what to do, just don't tell me why. Maybe we can stay ahead of this thing."

  Stay ahead of it? Elend thought. It has the power to bury the entire empire in ash, and can apparently hear every single word we say. How do we "stay ahead" of something like that? But, he had just promised to trust Vin, so he did so.

  Vin pointed at the table. "Is that your letter to Yomen?"

  Elend nodded. "I'm hoping that he'll talk to me, now that I'm actually here."

  "Slowswift does seem to think that Yomen is a good man. Maybe he'll listen."

  "Somehow, I doubt it," Elend said. He sat softly for a moment, then made a fist, gritting his teeth in frustration. "I told the others that I want to try diplomacy, but I know that Yomen is going to reject my message. That's why I brought my army in the first place-I could have just sent you to sneak in, like you did in Urteau. However, sneaking in didn't help us much there; we still have to secure the city if we want the supplies.

  "We need this city. Even if you hadn't felt so driven to discover what was in the cache, I would have come here. The threat Yomen poses to our kingdom is too strong, and the possibility that the Lord Ruler left important information in that cache can't be ignored. Yomen has grain in that storage, but the land here won't get enough sunlight to grow it. So, he'll probably feed it to the people-a waste, when we don't have enough to plant and fill the Central Dominance. We have to take this city, or at least make an ally out of it.